


Colours fade, Clothes rip

by ineffablenerd



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: 174 spoilers, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Gen, Grieving, Mentions of Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablenerd/pseuds/ineffablenerd
Summary: In the aftermath of the Shipwreck, Zolf asks Hamid for a favour
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	Colours fade, Clothes rip

**Author's Note:**

> Again. Big time Spoilers for Episode 174.
> 
> my Brain cursed me with this scene and I'm sharing it with you.

Zolf was pacing.

Physically he was sat between Cel and Barnes, all staring into the fire so they didn't accidentally turn their heads and see the bodies laid out in the snow next to them. But mentally he was turning and turning again.

His eyes tried wandering and he snapped them back to the flickering lights.

Across from him he could see Hamid curled up and buried in Azu's lap. He had stopped audibly sobbing but he was still shaking. The pile of Kobolds next to them was unreadable as always. None of their faces where visible and Zolf wouldn't be able to read their reptilian faces or know how they grieve anyways.

Zolf unclenched his hands from where they had frozen into fists hours ago. His legs felt wrong, his head felt wrong. Everything was _wrong_. This hadn't been how it was supposed to go.

They did everything they could. It shouldn't have been like this. He blamed himself, even if logically he knew that he couldn't have stopped the wild magic from doing what ever it wanted. He knew Cel blamed themselves too. He knew the look on their face from years of avoiding mirrors in case Ferin's face looked back at him. He couldn't help, he couldn't stop thinking about.

"Hamid... I.." When did he get up and walk around the fire?

Hamid's face appeared in the bulk of his coat. His eyes were still puffy and wet but his face looked scalier and more angular than ever. Zolf could see one of his hands scrunched into Azu's massive coat was slowly tearing through the fabric with it's claws.

"W-w-hat do you need Z-z-olf?" Hamid's voice was quivering and rough. Zolf couldn't ask him for this.

"I just... never mind it's not... you deserve to rest." Zolf tried to stand up. Or at least he thought he did but he didn't move.

"I-if I, If I can help. Please. let me help." there was desperation in Hamid's voice.

"I want... I keep thinking..." Zolf's eyes betrayed him again and flickered over to where the bodies were lined up. The tiny red one's. Carter in all the garish colours of the rainbow. And Oscar... ripped up and bloodied. Barely recognizable.

"Can you prestidigitate them." he said it before he could stop. Hamid looked over to the dead and his eyes filled with tears again.

"Never mind you don't have to... I can imagine you don't want to look at..." he was rambling.

"No. Y-yes. I mean." Hamid's voice was quivering, but stronger now. "I can."

"I just... he wouldn't want to look like this." Zolf wasn't looking at Hamid at all anymore. His eyes fixed on the tallest of the broken bodies. The most torn apart one. He could feel both Hamid's an Azu's gaze on him.

"He'd... he'd be so upset about that shirt..."

Hamid's clawed hand came up to rest on his knee. "I can do something about it. I can still do that."

He uncurled himself from Azu's lap and carefully stood up. When he turned to face their dead he grabbed for Zolf's hand. Zolf held it tight even though the claws cut into his skin. He could heal those cuts tomorrow. It didn't matter.

It was only a few steps to where they were all laid out in the snow. Hamid grabbed on even tighter focussing on Carter and Wilde instead of the Kobolds. Zolf didn't blame him.

"W-w-what do you want them to look like? I'd just try and turn Carter's colours back if that's ok but Wilde..."

Zolf could feel the claws dig even deeper into his hands but now it was him who was doing it.

Almost two years of his time with Oscar flashed before his eyes. The peacock coat and orange socks when he broke into Hamid's. The bright and almost sensible suit in Paris oh how he hated him back then. The shorn and ashen man who found him when the World went bad. His hair slowly growing out, his body filling in again with rest and Zolf's cooking. The Kimonos in Japan. They all paled at the vision of Wilde, grinning and clattering making the Bow Bar a thousand years and so little time ago. Eye's bright, sleeves rolled up of a white shirt with just one too many buttons open.

"Just. Clean him up. And... make it a nice shirt. S-something that's just not sensible." He can hear how choked his voice is. How nonsensical the request. He shouldn't have asked. It was stupid.

The dead are dead and he's not strong enough to change that. And neither is that Druid that dissappeared as fast as they had come after talking to Cel. He might be a cleric of hope but this kind of hope was dangerous. It would just hurt so much more when they couldn't...

He felt the knot in his chest tighten as Hamid let go of his hand and pulled out one of the magical hankerchiefs. He only touched it to Carter's feet but the hurricane of colours dropped from him in an instant.

For Wilde, Hamid kneeled down and just stared for a moment. Zolf remembered that Hamid was barely more than a child in their respective lifespans. Yet he had already seen so much. It had been selfish to ask for this.

Hamid took a deep breath and touched the hankerchief to Wilde's leg. The blood disappeared. The rips in his trousers and shirt knitted themselves together. His hair stopped being matted with blood and dirt and fell in soft curls around his head. He looked like he had always looked.

_Just dead_.

And Zolf finally broke down. He fell where he stood and curled up. He could hear Cel and Azu stand up behind them, feel Hamid's hand back on him. Someone, probably Azu carried him back to the fire but it all didn't matter.

Oscar was gone. He thought getting to look at him like he was one last time would help but instead it was just one more punch.

There had always been more pressing matters, the end of the world, the next mission, there hadn't been time.

He should have just told him how he felt.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to write angst I want only nice things from here on out. But that's how my brain works aparently.  
> Let's just trust Alexander and this suspicious Druid. Cleric of Hope my ass.


End file.
